STRAIGHT AND NARROW: A 520 DAY TALE OF LOVE AND STUPIDITY
by BinaryTales
Summary: On the tropical island of Ranamuerte, Ed and Roy's search for evidence of ancient alchemy comes to a screeching halt when they accidentally stumble into seminar at their resort led by a famous reality tv personality and therapist who claims he can 'cure' men of The Love That Dares Not Speak Its Name...
"STRAIGHT"…AND NARROW?

A 520 DAY TALE FROM THE FIFTY TRIPS AROUND THE SUN

2006-2016 BY THE BINARY ALCHEMIST

(Author's note: Waaaay back when dinosaurs roamed the earth….I wrote a little novella called "Fifty Trips Around the Sun"—a post-Conqueror of Shamballa tale of Ed and Roy being reunited on the earth side of the Gateway in present days. Now, ten years on…this wee tale of Ed and Roy versus a narrow-minded nitwit of a Reality TV Expert on converting LGBTQ folk seems more relevant than ever. So now…"Trippers" past and present….join us on the beautiful isle of Ranamuerte—currently at war with Jamaica over a coffee embargo—land of poisonous tree frogs and guilt-ridden homosexuals hoping to pay Big Money to turn straight…because Ed and Roy just happened to stumble into the wrong conference room at their resort….."

ZIP LINE ORIENTATION CLASS (1 hr, Meeting Room 201). Required for all tourists prior to using Ranamuerte zip lines for touring jungle canopy and treking to high elevation sea cave sites. Basic introduction to riding zip lines, adjusting body harness, checking gear, glove and hand breaking. Zip line trekers are advised to wear sturdy footwear, heavy gloves (provided), long trousers for leg protection, sport cords for eyeglasses. Hair should be tied back to keep it free from zip line wheel assembly. After class, stop by the front desk to pick up harnesses, carabiners, gloves and maps. Have fun!

"Well, this sucks!" Edward bitched after twenty minutes of ass-numbing boredom, waiting for the instructor to show. It was clammy inside, and the pervading stench of Caribbean mildew was making his nose itch. "Let's get this shit over with so we can get out to lines. According to Alphonse, we ride the zip lines through the canopy until the main line ends at the cliffs. Then we take the trail to the left—"

"—the one labled 'DANGER—Hazardous area—beware of falling rocks—"

"—that's the one, right. He says the rumored alchemic cave hieroglyphs are located through a narrow cleft off the southeast face. He left a sign reading 'Tresspassers Will Not Make It Out Of Here Alive'. Fuckin' brilliant, little brother." He rolled his eyes in disgust. "Ever ridden a zip line before?"

Roy shook his head. "I saw it in a movie with Sean Connery— _Medicine_ _Man_ , I think. He and the female lead put on these harnesses, climbed up into the treetops, hooked on to the cable and pulley and glided around on the cable through the jungle canopy. Looked fun, to tell the truth. And Alphonse has done this every time he's checked this so-called transmutation array?"

Ed snorted. "Yeah. Swinging through the jungle in a pair of Speedos and his Air Jordans. He's kinda notorious in these parts, but it's kinda isolated. Now," he searched around irritably, "where the hell is our instructor? Everybody's here."

Roy looked uneasy. "Yeah…and you notice something? We're the only ones dressed for the trek. What's with the suits and ties?"

"Beats the fuck out of me!"

"GENTLEMEN! Welcome! We're delighted to have you in class this morning!" boomed through the dusty speakers in the corners of the room. "Please be seated! Our seminar leader will begin shortly. Please remember, no eating, drinking or flash photography during the seminar. Owing to the nature of today's class, no one will be allowed to enter or exit the meeting room until class is over. Thank you for your cooperation!"

"Taking it a bit far, are they?" Mustang leaned in to whisper to his lover.

Edward shrugged. "Don't want anybody up on the lines who doesn't know what the hell they're doing . Anyway, can't you sit still for an hour? Or do you need to go potty?"

Mustang was about to fire off a few more snarky _bon mots_ when the lights blinked out, save for a single spotlight over the podium in front of them. "Shhhhh! This should be interesting," he hissed. Edward nodded, agreeing for once.

The speakers crackled into life again, this time with a swell of patriotic music. A narration began in a voice that sounded like it was dipped in moonlight and molasses and strained through Robert E. Lee's undershorts…

 _"FREEDOM! One of our most CHERISHED VALUES in the FREE WORLD. Freedom to live! Freedom to work! Freedom to choose our own destiny….and most importantly, FREEDOM….to CHANGE!"_

Edward Elric and Roy Mustang exchanged horrified looks, jaws dropping in unison. "Wha-what the _FUCK_?"

"GENTLEMEN! Your time is NOW. You have the POWER, to make the change! To break free from the old destructive habits, to choose a new way of LIVING AND LOVING! And now-Hope Springs Resort proudly presents, "STRAIGHT AND NARROW: A JOURNEY INTO WELLNESS, with your Seminar Leader, _JAMES BUSBEE MCDONALD!_ "

The automail hand griping the arm of Edward's chair flexed of its own accord.

The chair arm snapped _off_.

The oldest surviving descendant of Hoenheim of Light instinctively clapped the palms of his gloved hands together.

Roy Mustang may have been skeptical of the existence of alchemy on the Earth side of the Gateway, but he believed without question that his lover was a wonderful man with an exceedingly foul and vindictive temper when riled up…and Edward was _riled up_. Oh fuck, _yes_. Roy inched his chair back slightly to avoid getting hit by the shrapnel when his _lover_ gave James Busbee McDonald the automail ass- _whuppin_ ' of a lifetime….

…only it _didn't_ happen…

One hour stretched into two…then three. On and on and on, Busbee McDonald ranted. He sweated. He testified. Dropping down on one knee, he sobbed as he confessed to the myriad sins of sodomy, felatio, frottage, masturbation and analingus. "Mah wife…" he wailed, tugging at his tie. "Oh…GAWD! Mah pore darlin' Beverly! Cain't yew IMAGINE how it must've PAINED that GOOD WOMAN! Knowin' she was lyin' in bed…next to a SODOMITE! Do you KNOW what was goin' threw MAH mind, brothers? Do yew?"

A voice rang out from the darkness. "Yeah. The 800 number for the Jerry Springer Show. That's the _American Idol_ for trailer trash freaks like you, asshole!"

McDonald licked his lips and blinked at the crowd of silent men, sweating in the darkness beyond his spotlight. "She…she wuz…lyin' in her _marriage bed_ …next to a SODOMITE! C-can yew BELIEVE what that must have been like?"

A second voice, this one low and sensual. "It's great, actually. Unless he's had broccoli, in which case it's worse than that scene in _Blazing Saddles_."

"Hey!" the first voice shot back. "I had to share a bed with you when you were so whacked out on that one frog venom shooter you'd have fucked Elenore Roosevelt if she'd worn a jockstrap."

"—oohhh, that's so goddamned funny, coming from a man who gets his rocks off giving blowjobs in airplane toilets." That purring, sexy voice again. "Ordinarily it's impossibly to get two adult men into a First Class bathroom…but when one of them is—"

"-don't say it!" the first voice threatened. " _Damn you, don't—"_

"—so bean sized that in Tokyo they call him Edo-MAME—"

"- _Mustang_! I'll fucking _kill_ you, I swear—"

"—all I had to do was hide him in my pocket and nobody knew I snuck him in," Roy finished triumphantly.

"HAH!" Ed lashed back. "If I'm so goddamned little, then it's a good thing you've got such a tiny—"

Now it was getting ugly."-if I'm so tiny, why do you always walk around bowlegged the morning after, like somebody rammed a freight train up your ass?"

Edward was drawing in a breath for the next volley when McDonald cut them both off. " _YOU!_ Those voices…. _you were the ones on the plane!_ " The tv talk show maven felt the blood drain out of his face. It coursed right though his body and straight towards… _damn._ Those were the two deviants who had been engaging in carnal congress in the cramped quarters in the bathroom on the flight to the island. The ones who accidentally flushed the cell phone down the crapper and flooded the First Class section.

James Busbee McDonald felt the blood run from his face down to his _other_ head. His penis rose in what he _hoped_ was nothing more than righteous indignation.

He would have to give it a sound…beating…later…

Edward stood up and addressed the audience. "Lights, please?" Like Linus in the Christmas pagent, the spotlight shifted from the sweaty faced James Busbee McDonald to a cocky, grinning Edward Elric, old enough to know better, young enough at heart not to give a rat's ass, indisputably _hot_ with his tight fitting jeans, thick blond pony tail and molten gold eyes that surveyed his quarry with undiguised amusement. "All right, listen up, people. You've just spent a small fortune to listen to this _wanker_ piss and moan about how guilty he feels about cheating on his wife, paying some two-bit street hustler to ream him up the ass and trying to live a double life on the low down. Yeah, you're a real _prince_ McDonald. I don't personally know any self respecting Gay man who'd fuck you if you had a thousand dollar bill tucked in the crack of your ass. You've got about as much credibilty as a Sexual Orientation Deprogrammer—whatever the fuck _that_ is supposed to mean—as I have as prima ballerina.

"You want me to say it? You want me to call myself a horrible, degenerate fag and beat my breast and recant my sexuality? Two words, mac: _blow me._ On second thought— _don't_. My dick would never forgive me. And neither would my _husband."_

Roy swallowed hard. "What the fuck-?"

Edward turned fond eyes towards the man he had loved and fought with for over three decades. "Yeah, _you_ , shithead." Dropping to one knee, Edward took Roy's hands in his own. "I've said it before. I'll say it again. In fact, I'll quote myself—remember the day we had the fight over that over you dragging me to Burning Man—which was about as much fun as a hemorrhoidectomy? Remember what I told you?"

Roy nodded slowly. "You said,'You're so deeply tied into my life that it would take a chainsaw and a team of lawyers to separate us. If you think I'm a crazy fuck with bogus memories and a hunger for self-promotion, fine! And if you think I'm the man you loved so much in Amestris you had to cross between worlds to find me again, terrific!' And then…"

"And then you carried me off to our bedroom," Ed released Mustang's hands, arms sliding around his lover's taut waist. "And you told me once again with your hands…and your mouth…and your cock…you reminded me what we really mean to each other. That," he addressed the men surrounding him, squirming uneasily in the darkness, "is why we can yell and scream and insult each other the way we do. Because of thirty years of _trust_."

"And _devotion_ ," Roy added, brushing Ed's damp hair back from his forehead.

"And devotion," Edward affirmed. "You can't get that fucking around in alleyways, hoping your innocent wife or girlfriend won't find out. It takes guts to live Out and be true to yourself…but it's the only way you can have what my… _husband_ …and I have. Speaking of which-Roy Mustang… _will you marry me?_ "

The room full of sweaty, guilt ridden closet homosexuals-plus one self-proclaimed 'cured' closet case—instantly became so quiet you could hear a tree frog fart.

For a split second, Roy debated pulling Edward up into his lap. He'd have done it at home—but in a room full of possibly hostile strangers it didn't seem right to call attention to the disparity between their heights. Besides, Ed had just humbled himself to the point of kneeling at Roy's feet, which in and of itself was good reason to question the older man's sanity. Ed didn't kneel unless he was a)giving a blowjob, or b)preparing to sink his teeth into somebody's ankles or, c)trying to drag Al's cat out from under the sofa, where the psychotic Siamese would lurk, eager to dig his fishhooks Ed's human toes.

Rising, Roy shoved his chair to one side and sank down on his knees to face his lover, who pulled him close. His automail hand swept through Roy's thick black hair, snapping the rubber band that held it back into a neat queue. "Well, shithead?" Edward demanded.

Roy bit his lover lightly on the chin. "As long as I'm not the one in the white dress….yes. And stop calling me shithead, you manipulative old bastard. Could have at least proposed to me someplace romantic!"

"Fuck you! I was going to wait until we get toParis, but the Wanker got me so pissed off—HEY! Somebody turn up the lights!" he shouted irritably, then blinked as the room flooded with light again. "Hold on a minute, love. We've still got an audience."

An audience that was one short…

"Where the fuck is Wanker McDonald?" Edward demanded. "What'd he do—take your money, piss and moan and then bugger off?" He stared around the room. "Fuck that! You people better see if you can get a refund."

A ginger-haired man in the front row loosened his tie, blotted the sweat from his forehead and offered the lovers a weak but determined smile. "It was almost worth twenty thousand just to see the look on McDonald's face when you told him off, sir. I…I think what you said…well…I think I got what I came for, listening to you. And you're right. The low down isn't fair to our families, not if we really love them. I guess…well, I'd be a better dad if I was living honestly. And it's not fair to raise my kid in a house built on lies."

Edward nodded. "Do what you have to do—but stop hurting people. Stop lying to them. If you love men…then love 'em. Quit hating yourself. Save your anger, " he offered the man a fierce, toothy grin, "for the real evils in this world. As for me and my lovely fiancée—"

"—ohhh, now don't start that shit—" Roy warned.

"—we're going to tie up some loose ends and get the hell out of Ranamuerte, go home and tell our families they've got a wedding to plan…and that Roy wants a cathedral length train on his wedding dress—"

"-the fuck I do!—" Roy roared.

"—a dozen bridesmaids in pink and a pair of crotchless lace panties to wear with his garter belt!"

"EDWARD! You asshole! I'll kill you for this!"

The End….not that love stories ever Really end….


End file.
